The bigger the truck, the greater the (misplaced?) concern about payload?

[Todd n Natalie]

I had a few conversations with Brian, head of north American f series, over my truck order. We spent time on this. My truck was to have a 4900 lb payload. His literature stated in two areas , 4900 and 4000 for my truck. When the truck showed up my payload was 4741 lbs. The difference between a couple of options added and the first number. Crew, there is a reason Ford stopped producing Brochures in July of this year, it wasn't just to save money. The literature was filled full of misinformation and when pressed on this, Brian got really quiet. I told him to hire me just to check for continuity.

The chart says each available seat, so I'd venture that regular cabs are calculated with 3 seats, super and crew cabs with 6 seats - so 450 lbs of passengers for a regular cab and 900 lbs of passengers for the supercab and crew cab. Since Ford requires the HDPP for any F150 with a truck camper, those numbers (with added weight for passengers) seem to roughly add up to max payload stickers on HDPP trucks - based on memory since I don't have a chart in front of me.

Speaking of misinformation, the chart refercing weights of HDPP's.... Kind of funny the truck pictured is of a 145" wheelbase 502a Lariat. Since you can't get HDPP on a Lariat or on any 145" wheelbase F150. I'd guess the truck on the chart as pictured with that camper, would have been overweight.

 

[rruff]

I told him to hire me just to check for continuity.

That might just open a can of worms... determining which number is correct... if any! ?

 

[stevo_pct]

Speaking of misinformation, the chart refercing weights of HDPP's.... Kind of funny the truck pictured is of a 145" wheelbase 502a Lariat. Since you can't get HDPP on a Lariat or on any 145" wheelbase F150. I'd guess the truck on the chart as pictured with that camper, would have been overweight.

I noticed the same thing! Ford says that the 145" wheel base super crew (the one with the 5.5' bed, shown in the picture) is not designed to carry a camper.

 

[UglyViking]

A positive sign that folks are at least somewhat starting to "get it" is that majority of the trucks in the classified ads mention something along the lines of "going bigger, or moving up" so thats a plus, i guess.

I honestly think this trend for going bigger is just the ebbs and flows of the industry. People get tired of the same old thing and want something new. There are starting to become more and more bolt on options for full sized rigs, so the jeep/yota crowd can start doing their mods.

I think we will see guys move to full size, it will have it's moment, then it will return to small/mid-sized, it will have it's moment, and around and around we go.

Fair enough; I didn't know that about the litigant firm, but there are other examples too though of manufacturers being held to account via legal processes. The Pinto is a good example, the firestone tires debacle being another. Chrysler had an issue with seatbelts some time ago that would come undone in a high speed impact or rollover, as well as a lawsuit related to the Pacifica lighting on fire.

The pinto literally blew up in certain accidents. So the vehicle was being used as intended, but under a crash it blew up. I believe there are certain standards that must be met around accidents, although I couldn't quote them. The biggest thing around this was that Ford management was aware of the potential issue and decided to not address it to save money. This probably wouldn't have been the case at all had management not covered it up, but we will never know for sure.

As for the Firestone issue, I believe it was related to a specific plant cheaping out on a component which caused the tires to delaminate at highway speeds. Although I know there was a lot of finger pointing between Ford and Firestone at the time, I am not 100% sure where it landed.

Either way, the biggest thing to note with both those cases is that they were factory vehicles, being used as normal driving conditions. I think we may have gone past their usefulness for this conversation.

 

[ChasingOurTrunks]

The pinto literally blew up in certain accidents. So the vehicle was being used as intended, but under a crash it blew up. I believe there are certain standards that must be met around accidents, although I couldn't quote them. The biggest thing around this was that Ford management was aware of the potential issue and decided to not address it to save money. This probably wouldn't have been the case at all had management not covered it up, but we will never know for sure.

As for the Firestone issue, I believe it was related to a specific plant cheaping out on a component which caused the tires to delaminate at highway speeds. Although I know there was a lot of finger pointing between Ford and Firestone at the time, I am not 100% sure where it landed.

Either way, the biggest thing to note with both those cases is that they were factory vehicles, being used as normal driving conditions. I think we may have gone past their usefulness for this conversation.

Yes the Pinto was an interesting one; I used to teach about it in a Risk Management class as part of a business degree at a local college. The issue, if I remember correctly, is that the highly-rushed design put the fuel tank in a spot where it was likely to have the filler neck ripped off and be punctured by the bolts on the rear axle in a rear end collision, causing the total dumping of the fuel tank very rapidly; other cars Ford (and others) made at the time did not have this problem because they located the tank more above the rear axle with more guards, not behind it and exposed, but Ford did a Cost/Benefit analysis of the problem and made the intentional choice that the lawsuits suffered from the design flaw would be cheaper than the parts required to fix it. In the late 1970s, Ford was taken to court over this issue, and because of their negligence, they got handed a hefty judgement. That ended up in a recall which resulted in the problematic parts being fixed. The ironic thing about the Pinto case is the death/injury rate from the Pinto "defect" wasn't actually that much different from other cars, but the courts decided it was a safety issue anyway and forced Ford's hand.

I agree with you that these are "normal use" flaws; ultimately if a person chooses to use any product in a way that it's not designed to be used (i.e. overloading a vehicle), they are accepting greater risk and that is not the OEM's problem. I may have misunderstood what you meant by "not having heard of a case that gets to trial where an OEM has to backup safety decisions" in a prior post; I totally agree that the cases I listed (and the only ones I am aware of) are for normal use of vehicles, not because of end-user abusing the vehicle, overloading it, etc. and they do have limited relevancy in this convo; it does relate to what @nickw and I were discussing about the NA truck having less payload than the ROW trucks; it seems likely given the litigious history of OEMs' that they are more likely to be under-rating NA trucks than over-rating ROW trucks, as over-rating = potential deaths, which = lawsuits.

And nobody has answered my tire question yet....

 

[nickw]

View attachment 750500

Huh. That seems confusing in my situation.

A supercrew 4x4 w/ a 157" wheelbase F150 and a 3.5 lists maximum cargo weight at 1,721 lbs. And that takes into account a 150lb passenger in each seat?

Well, some trucks seat 5 and some 6. So would that extra body not affect the weight rating?

Also for example, my payload is 1,777lbs for an XLT 302. If someone has a loaded 157" wheelbase Platinum PowerBoost, with a 1,200 lbs payload they may reference that chart and think that can handle 1,721 lbs because that's what Fords chart says....
Or am I totally misunderstanding this chart?

I was posting it more to show the CoG requirements relative to what @rruff was suggesting are never taken into account:



It's confusing you are right....I do remember another chart, sim to the one I posed, with reduced payload based on slide in camper use but can't find it....

 

[rruff]

I was posting it more to show the CoG requirements relative to what @rruff was suggesting are never taken into account.

Camper manufacturers list fore-aft CGs. If Ford includes an additional CYA disclaimer regarding CG they must be using that one. Like don't put a 10ft camper on a 5.5ft bed. ?

I was referring to the vertical CG of the load.

 

[Todd n Natalie]

If Ford includes an additional CYA disclaimer regarding CG they must be using that one.

Oh I'm sure they have a 'CYA' disclaimer about people doing things they shouldn't with their trucks. I think I found it:

 

[TexasSixSeven]

So many "experienced" people here just don't get it. Your personal stories of overloaded vehicles during normal driving conditions have absolutely zero value. Virtually every possible configuration of any vehicle feels fine in normal conditions.

The great danger you are missing here is how would your overloaded vehicle handle and react in an emergency situation? I am not talking about a drive when you are in control of the vehicle - I am talking about a portion of a drive when you are standing on the brakes and prying at the steering wheel with both hands barely able to control your vehicle. The GVWR, payload rating, suspension, braking, steering, etc. have all been painstakingly designed and rigorously tested to operate within a defined and acceptable profile.

For those of you who are uneducated and/or irresponsible and drive overloaded vehicles, I challenge you to overload your rig and begin rolling down Wolf Creek Pass at night, with poor visibility, and tell us how well your rig handles when you swerve into oncoming traffic to avoid an animal crossing the road and then attempt to swerve back into your lane since you are now about to crash head-on into an 80,000 pound 18-wheeler. Share your amazing ability to control a vehicle which is operating well outside of it's operating envelope.

I would expect this sort of irresponsible and uneducated discussion from teenagers or guys in their 20s with a devil-may-care attitude. But from this group, seriously? Arguing that exceeding load limits is nothing to worry about since, "I did this blah, blah, blah..."

don’t swerve for animals. That’s even more stupid than overloading your vehicle!

 

[RAM5500 CAMPERTHING]

don’t swerve for animals. That’s even more stupid than overloading your vehicle!

Agreed

 

[calicamper]

I was posting it more to show the CoG requirements relative to what @rruff was suggesting are never taken into account:

View attachment 750578

It's confusing you are right....I do remember another chart, sim to the one I posed, with reduced payload based on slide in camper use but can't find it....

I met a gal that has her own crash analysis company. Her number one pet peeve is heavily loaded roof racks. She runs physics simulations on various types of typical setups especially for bad roll over wrecks. She really doesn’t like large roof boxes on SUVs especially the extra long versions. Given they more often are carrying more people and more likely to have roof gear far exceeding the rated loads.

 

[NoTraxx]

I met a gal that has her own crash analysis company. Her number one pet peeve is heavily loaded roof racks. She runs physics simulations on various types of typical setups especially for bad roll over wrecks. She really doesn’t like large roof boxes on SUVs especially the extra long versions. Given they more often are carrying more people and more likely to have roof gear far exceeding the rated loads.

That actually sounds like a pretty cool job. Does she go to the site of a crash or make her own?

 

[calicamper]

That actually sounds like a pretty cool job. Does she go to the site of a crash or make her own?

Yes often does site analysis. I asked her whats the typical bad situation. High speed, leaving the road to miss slowing traffic she said is a common one with bad roll overs. Getting off onto a road shoulder at speed, inexperienced driver turns back tward the road at speed and game over.

 

[DaveNay]

Yes often does site analysis. I asked her whats the typical bad situation. High speed, leaving the road to miss slowing traffic she said is a common one with bad roll overs. Getting off onto a road shoulder at speed, inexperienced driver turns back tward the road at speed and game over.

I was witness to a similar accident. A large SUV attempted to pass me on a rural two lane (he was going way too fast). He tagged the gravel shoulder on the left when he swung into the opposite lane to pass. He over corrected (to the right), missed my rear bumper by about an inch and ended up rolling his truck in the corn field to the right.

 

[ramblinChet]

don’t swerve for animals. That’s even more stupid than overloading your vehicle!

Nice though but swerving to avoid a collision is part of your sympathetic nervous system, and you, like most others, have virtually no control over it. If we are walking towards each other and I reach into my pocket and throw a handful of change towards your face you will squeeze your eyes together, pull your hands up, turn your head to the side, and make a funny face. You are wired that way.

Can the same system be reprogrammed? Yes, to a limited degree. It takes a ton of work and must be practiced and rehearsed again and again. Once you break the cycle, the system defaults to it's original settings.